Last update: 17-Jun-2013 rev 1

Lots of Photos from IRA/COMARA Picnic

Alan Olson has compiled photos taken by several attendees of the 4th Annual IRA/COMARA Picnic held Sunday, May 19, 2013 at Seneca Creek State Park. It's a great venue for a group picnic. if you weren't able to attend this year, you missed a great opportunity to reminisce with some friends in both organizations. Thanks to Alan Olson and Anita Soltos for making the arrangements for this year's picnic. Alan uses PicasaWeb for these photos.

Rich Lustig Retirement Party

On 06/11/13, Jack Hannon wrote:
Ron Mario, Geza and I "flew the COMSAT flag" at Rich Lustig's retirement ceremony at Lockheed yesterday, which was a joyous occasion (he still doesn't look anything like retirement age!).

Rich re-echoed his intention to join COMARA, and said to the group, as I recall, that COMSAT had the finest Benefits program of any of the companies he worked for, most of which were Fortune 100 companies based in NY. Good. Let's keep holding Lockheed to it.

Jack established a relationship with Rich soon after COMARA was formed. While most benefits questions today can be answered by the LMC Employee Benefits Center, there are times when it helps to have an advocate with corporate memory to help with the unusual problems. Rich has helped us a number of occasions. Thanks to Rich for all his help over the years.

Mobile Website Changes Coming

Most of the design of the COMARA website was created about 10 years ago. At that time, information was viewed on a desktop computer or notebook computer, or printed. One of the biggest changes to computing since that time is the use of smart phones and tablets to display information. When my children are together with us, they all have iPhones that they frequently use. They are quick to search for information related to the current topic of discussion. I'm awed by how quickly they find answers to their questions.

I've noticed that many of my friends who have a smart phone or tablet use it for many of their email activities. A web page, email, or text message today may be viewed on a large monitor, an HDTV screen, or a small screen on a mobile phone that easily fits into a pocket. Some organizations created two versions of a website. One viewed on a large screen display; the other on a mobile device. The most recent developments attempt to display the information on any device using the same file. This is often called responsive design. As a page is delivered, the code senses the capabilities of the device and modifies the display of information to fit the screen.

Over the next month, I plan to roll out a few responsive pages to test the functions and your reaction. The page will also be offered with the current design so you will have a choice. We have 10 years of COMARA history on the website, and much of it may need to remain in the current form. So - stay tuned and I'll let you know of changes as they are added.
-- Ron Garlow --

Impact of Affordable Care Act on Medicare

From Jack Hannon -
In response to the question about this at the COMARA meeting last Tueday, I am providing a piece by Dr.Donald Berwick, then-adminisrator of the Medicare program, in early 2011 which sums it all up quite comprehensively, I do think.

Statement by Dr. Donald M. Berwick, M.D., M.P.P. M.D., M.P.P.
Administrator Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS)
on

Impact of the Affordable Care Act on Seniors and Medicare

before Committee on Ways and Means
United States House of Representatives
Thursday February 10, 2011

http://www.hhs.gov/asl/testify/2011/02/t20110210a.html

The Dave Reiser Photo Collection

Dave Reiser is sharing many of the photos he took during his time with COMSAT. These photo are currently uploaded to a free service from Microsoft called SkyDrive. Dave has give us a huge collection of photos. We hope you enjoy viewing them. Dave organized and uploaded them into a COMARA SkyDrive account. There are very few captions on these photos. If you would like to help add captions or tag people in the photos, please contact the webmaster.

Some of the attractive features in SkyDrive include:

• Photo Albums
• Each photo can have a caption
• Individuals in a photo can be tagged
• Photo albums can be shared as:
  • Anyone with a link can edit
  • Anyone with a link can view (but not edit)
  • Public
• Use arrow keys for next/previous photo
• Use Escape key to return to album view

There are 29 albums at the top level. An album can contain photos or another album. There are 115 albums in this collection. An indented list of all albums is provided to help you find your way or return to an album you have seen. The SkyDrive album opens in a new tab or window. After you select a different album from the list, you may need to select the SkyDrive tab to view the new album display.

Here is a hierarchical listing of the albums with links to allow you to view the individual photos.

COMARA's SkyDrive Album: The Reiser Collection